The Day After That
by Tavaril
Summary: At Dunharrow encampment, Éowyn contemplates her future as the men prepare to ride for Minas Tirith.


The below is written based on the movie version of things and covers the gaps between Éowyn's four scenes at Dunharrow. Everything I have written about Éowyn's motives and whatnot will probably be invalidated by the extended DVD (or already has been invalidated by the book, and I just missed/ignored it), but for now, enjoy. Please let me know if I've made any heinous errors (or even itty bitty ones), as I'll probably be tweaking this piece for a while yet. All the usual disclaimers apply; I own nothing (especially not certain quotes from _Kiss of the Spider Woman _and _Spoon River Anthology_ *whistles innocently*).

My knowledge of the house of Eorl is limited to what is included in Appendix A; if anyone can recommend further reading on the subject, it would be greatly appreciated.

Dedicated to the one and only Sophster (I was thinking about calling this "Dutiful Lives," C'auft. Teehee).

The Day After That

Éowyn's cheeks burned painfully as she sat, straight and slender and stern, on the soft mattress in her tent and tried to regain some measure of composure. It had been enjoyable at first, helping Merry to fit himself with a suit of armor. It had kept her occupied, even made her feel useful. Both of them would have otherwise been alone, and they seemed oddly suited to each other's company. She'd smiled as he deftly slashed the air, cutting down invisible foes. _We are not alone, she thought. _Even abandoned, Merry and I are not alone.__

Then the halfling had run off. "You should not encourage him," Éomer had said blandly, as if Merry were a troublesome child, trying to tag along with his older siblings.

Éowyn grimaced; it was so easy for her brother to shrug off Merry's earnest attempts at valor, just as easy as it was for him to remain blissfully unaware of her silent plea for help. She didn't really blame him; he doubtless had his own burdens, as she had hers. Éowyn had often tried to conceive of the kind of life that her brother lived, tried to imagine the bars falling away, but she never could.

Stepping outside into the pleasant night air, Éowyn marveled at the incredible stillness of the world. A red day, a ruinous day, was approaching, and yet the night was completely tranquil, a pale moon shining down on the rocky plains, a gentle breeze stirring the grass. Or perhaps the night's silence was not begot of tranquility; perhaps the world was simply holding its breath in wordless terror, waiting for the worst to come and praying that it would not.

Smoke from the men's fires drifted lazily up toward the stars and dispersed into nothingness. Below, the horses had ceased in their nervous excitement long enough to sleep, and the men had willed themselves to ignore the shadow of the mountain. They too, doubtless, were holding their breath, hiding in the stillness until daylight summoned them to their duty and they rode west. Éowyn would gladly have traded places with any of them. To follow her lord and kin into battle; to ride, as an equal, along side her brother and Lord Aragorn...

Her cheeks burned. She would not have minded being confined to the life of a woman if she were _his_.

No. She was lying to herself with that last notion. She would hate living inside, away from the swords and horses, away from flight and fancy. She would hate living inside, away from the beautiful open plains of Rohan and the magnificent, violent winds of Edoras which pulled at her dress like a child, begging to play. She would hate sitting still and listening, an unwilling smile plastered on her face, while the men regaled the court with tales of their noble deeds that day. And she would have no man's pity, pity for the soft, weak creature who, incomprehensibly, was not satisfied with the life of peace and comfort that was her right by birth. They would shake their heads in seeming sympathy for her discontent and then be off mere seconds later, combing the Riddermark for adventure, having completely forgotten the caged bird who sat watching, weeping silently.

_But he is not like that_, she thought desperately. _He is kind and noble and good, with a true king's heart. I love him, and he knows it. I am sure he knows it, for when he looks into my eyes, and I into his, I know that I can be free, free of shackles, free of doubt, free of the golden hall where self-important heroes drink themselves to puerility in celebration and sleep on unswept floors amongst the dogs._

Puzzled, she shook her head, wondering whence that last thought had come.

Something caught her gaze; Éowyn turned and saw Aragorn emerging from her uncle's tent, a hand resting easily on the pommel of his sword. He stood tall and proud, and though the evening veiled his face, his demeanor seemed changed so much that it frightened her. She wondered why her uncle would have requested his presence so late. Perhaps one final council had been called to discuss strategy and enemy movement. Perhaps there was news that more riders were on the way.

Perhaps Aragorn had gone there of his own will, to ask the hand of a daughter of the house of Eorl. She scarcely dared to consider the possibility, scarcely dared to hope it.

Abruptly, he crossed the cluster of tents and disappeared from her view. Éowyn felt her feet move, one in front of the other, almost as if of their own accord, walking, then running to follow him. She had to know. If he felt nothing for her, there would be no one else to whom she might turn. If she were left behind, to rest on comfortable pillows in clean dresses, to wait and wait and wait, she would go mad, die of grief. There would be nothing else that she could do, and she would welcome death before seeing the man she loved go to another woman's arms.

If he loved her, though, perhaps she would be able to await the outcome of the battle with some peace of mind.

*          *          *

Éowyn's eyes stung painfully as she sat, miserable and dazed, on the soft mattress in her tent and tried to imagine what idiocy had possessed her to risk all on such a gamble. For once, she had not swallowed her feelings; she had bared her heart to him and wordlessly begged his love. She knew that he would answer her, knew that neither of them would be able to walk away from the matter this time. The seconds, fractions of seconds, stretched into a torturous eternity, and she scarcely dared to breathe.

And he, quiet and gentle as ever, had told her no, turned his back, and left. She sank into the dark, tears welling in her eyes but never leaving them.

What had it been that he said? _I cannot give you what it is you seek. As if the blame lay with him, somehow. As if it were a fault that he were kind, noble and true._

She wished that he had broken her. She wished that he had responded with harsh words in an angry voice so that she could simply hate him and move on. But he had not done so, and although she knew that such thinking was futile, Éowyn wondered what she had done wrong, what she might have done differently to win his love.

_You cannot abandon the men_, she had stammered.

She shut her eyes, color rising in her cheeks. Of all the idiotic ways to start a conversation...

No one had ever taught her how to love. Indeed, no one had ever taught her how to be a woman. Théodwyn, her mother, had died when she and Éomer were children; Théoden had welcomed them into his house as if they were his own, of course, but Queen Elfhild had died many years ago, and Meduseld was attended by few women. Éowyn knew that she was rough and unlearned, cold as midwinter, and that husbands did not want wives who were as stern and hard as men.

She did not know why Aragorn was leaving the encampment, but the reason was immaterial. As he departed, so did her last hope of release. Had he stayed, Éowyn would have followed him into battle and whatever lay beyond, for a soldier's love for his captain need not be requited.

Now...

Now she could go nowhere. She could no longer follow her lord and love into the fire that waited for them at Minas Tirith; she could still ride to war, but for whom would it be? Her uncle and brother thought only of protecting her, and if she rode with them, she would be scolded, but in spite of their attention to her, they knew she was perfectly capable of defending herself. Her presence in the coming battle would bewilder them, mean nothing. Just as she could no longer justify herself in joining the ranks of the Rohirrim, however, she could not bear to be left behind and sink back into the shadows, drowning in fine clothes and rich food, the will to live slowly eking out of her being until her fingers forgot the touch of a sword and grew too weak to handle anything but needlework. Her hair and eyes would fade, her flesh soften and sag on her bones like an ill-fitting garment. She would sink into death, growing numb from the feet up, like on stepping deeper and deeper into a stream of ice, until some merciful infirmity ended whatever was left of her hollow, cracked shell of a life.

She hadn't noticed the tears running down her cheek until she found herself unconsciously wiping them away. To live in such paralysis would be painful enough, but even more, Éowyn dreaded lingering, in shadow and uncertainty, until she forgot her ambitions, her courage, her will. Somewhere inside, that will would be screaming to get out, rattling the bars of the cage, but she would no longer know how to free it. She would be dead long before her heart ceased to beat.

"One should be all dead when one is half dead," she said quietly, "nor ever mock life, nor ever cheat love." Curling up around a thick blanket, she let the tears flow freely, and she cried and cried until sleep finally claimed her.

*          *          *

Éowyn's eyes were painfully dry as she held herself in stillness, contemplating the sunrise. Her uncle had made his farewell of sorts and left, to make preparations for the journey to Minas Tirith. "I would have you smile again," he told her before he took his leave of her, taking her face lightly in his careworn hands, "not grieve for those whose time has come. You shall live to see these days renewed." He touched his temple to hers. "No more despair."

She considered this parting note and laughed bitterly. _As if it were that simple. He, like Éomer, did not know what he was saying, had no way of knowing. She did not want protection, to be the one who survived alone; she wanted a chance to show her quality._

_Uncle, it was by your will,_ she thought, _that I learned to fight at all; none would have taught me without your leave. I learned well. Why would you have me learn the sword and then never bid me to draw it from its sheath in battle? Was I trained as a shieldmaiden simply to restore a dead tradition that your father forgot? Did you have me educated thus only because you did not know what else to do with a woman in your court? Or was it because you knew this day would come, terrible as death itself, when none would be left to protect me and I would have to face the world alone?_

_But I don't want to face the world alone, Uncle; I can't. I would rather die following you into the fray than let it be your sacrifice that spared me. _

She _could_ fight, and they knew it. Her brother knew it but did not even consider it as a viable possibility. Her uncle knew it but wanted to keep her safe for as long as possible. She herself knew it.

Didn't she?

It was one thing to spar with instructors in formal practice or stand guard over the women and children of Rohan as they cowered in the mountain caves of Helm's Deep. It was quite another to ride out in full armor onto a wide, bloodstained plain, strewn with bodies, and nothing standing in the way of death but a sword in hand.

She clenched her eyes shut. That would be the worst: to have claimed her worthiness all this time only to be the first struck down in the mêlée.

_Duty?_ her uncle had asked, incredulous. No, not duty, he seemed to be saying with the shake of his head; he bid her rather to find some measure of happiness in her own life, but he did not understand what he was, in fact, asking of her. What _he_ wanted was for her to be happy within the walls of Meduseld, happy within the place that had been set down for her, a woman's place. She could not find happiness there, though she had grown to be a marvelous actress in pretending that her life there was something that she could accept. When she did try to seek her own happiness, make something for herself, she was brushed aside. So what if she wielded a sword? Her foremothers had done no less; now, in her uncle's reign, it was something uncommon, unusual, certainly, but it was no gauge of quality, nor means of happiness. Had she truly left the word "duty" behind to seek out happiness, she would have bound her hair, donned a man's tunic, and armed herself to the teeth to defend lord and land.

But even this was not true escape from duty; she would simply be taking up a man's duty. The word had become loathsome, in her mind's eye, but it was not something from which she could escape. One duty might be preferable to another-- such was the nature of things-- but the duty assigned to her was completely arbitrary. It was absurd that she remain bound to a duty that had no bearing on the life she lead, the life she wanted to lead.

_So shall it be,_ she resolved grimly. _I cannot escape a life of duty, but I can embrace it, and I will. Understand, then, Uncle, that I do this out of duty, but that duty is to myself, of my making: not my duty as a woman, nor my duty as a courtier or warrior. I owe this to myself. I must know that I can do this. If you would rise to meet your fate with open arms, so shall I. If Éomer fears not for the darkness that awaits at the end of our path, nor shall I. If Lord Aragorn--_

She took a breath and opened her eyes. Aragorn was gone. He would not be with them and he would not return, and the sooner she accepted that fact, the better.

*          *          *

_"Ferðu Éomer hál,"_ she had whispered when her brother stopped at her tent to bid her farewell.

Her voice trembled as she spoke, and the apprehension in her eyes was mirrored in his. He held her gaze, none the less, and touched her cheek affectionately. "_Westu__ hál," he replied, "and fear not. I promise I will see you again soon, Éowyn."_

She bit her lip at that. He had no idea.

A suit of armor had not been difficult for her to obtain, and a steed and sword she already had. Éowyn, Éomund's daughter, a rider of Rohan dressed for battle, took in the frenzy of motion around her as the men made ready to leave the encampment, dousing fires, securing supplies, shouting hurried orders and instructions. There was some measure of fear yet in her gaze, but of the previous night's doubt and grief, no trace could be found. There were no tears left in her being.

Éomer was somewhere near the front of the company; Éowyn could hear him urging his men on, his voice fierce and alive. Rohirrim poured out of the encampment like a flood tide, a rush of bodies and spears, horses and men aching for battle. Daylight glinted off of every helm and shield, and bright banners danced madly in the wind. It was very beautiful.

No one would notice one more horse and rider, and no one would recognize her. Éowyn was sure of that. They would see only what they expected to see.

A short distance away, she saw her uncle riding up to the child-like figure clad in the helmet and steel that Éowyn had fitted on him the night before. Théoden bent down to speak to him, and Éowyn did not need to hear him to know what he was saying, nor did she need to see Merry's face to know the disappointment, frustration and abandonment that she would find there.

She had known that this would happen. In the last hours of preparation, she had known that this would happen, and she knew what her response was. She had known it still before, when she'd placed the helm upon his head; _A__ true esquire of Rohan, she had called him, and his eyes had lit up like torches. She had meant it, too. Éomer himself had admitted that the halfling's courage was formidable, even if his stature was not. Looking at him now, armored head bowed in deference to the king, Éowyn saw herself reflected, plain as day. __Do you still think us unfit to battle, my brother? she thought calmly, without malice. __Well, we will show our quality, Merry and I. And to you Merry: we will be free-- I promise you, we'll be free-- if not tomorrow, then the day after that._

Her uncle straightened and joined the stream of riders. Éowyn was deaf to her horse's hooves pounding the earth, barely conscious of her hand reaching out, hardly aware of Merry's weight as she hoisted him up onto the saddle, in front of her.

"Ride with me," she whispered.


End file.
